jamesfed

First post about the setup is now up here - Virtual Desktops on PCI-E SSD – Intro | my world of IT Covers off the server specs and a few costs. Next post will cover off the speed at which you can create desktops when using a PCI-E SSD.

Will be posting up some more details soon but here are the first 3 videos showing the PCI-E SSD when hosting virtual desktop in use- PCI-E SSD and VDI - Part 1 - Teaser - YouTube - Teaser Video PCI-E SSD and VDI - Part 2 - Hardware - YouTube - Hardware Video PCI-E SSD and VDI - Part 3 - End user - YouTube - UX Video

Don't you just hate it when you post up something only to find the answer yourself a few moments later - Buy Chenbro EZ Mount Rails from Server Case UK

Does anyone know of a place (in the UK idealy) that would be able to get ahold of the rack rails for this Chenbro server - Chenbro Micom Co., Ltd. Cheers

I'm going to be out from Friday - Tuesday so might not have enough time to have them ready for the day but are more than happy to give some a spin

Train to Oxford/Didcot and then bus the rest of the distance would work if you are looking at public transport.

This is the thread you are looking for (I think)- http://www.edugeek.net/forums/general-chat/64837-cheapskate-server-farm.html I'm accualy thinking about doing something simlar but with AMD A8 APUs in a 2U case with 2x ITX boards each case (Vertex 4 SSDs to run things off) - will let you know if anything ever comes of it.

Cheers for the mention - still have space here

The softlink guys have a PDF guide as to how to do a move - pressure them for it (we did and got it). If you have any issues at all after the move just say 'it stopped working' (again as we did) and they will fix it under your current support contract. Easy and simple

Microsoft have already run over how much easier updates are in Windows 8 so no need to worry about that I would say its a intresting move but one that I will support - with the large number of flash expolits you would expect that should someone do something to YouTube that makes all the videos toast your PC that Microsoft would be pretty quick to remove them from the list of supported sites (and as such protect your PC). As far as 'treating customers like mindless idots' goes - that is entirely Microsofts intent, just as it is Apples intent. Hammer out features that could cause issues and make the OS as simple as possible. Ok maybe that won't be a good thing for people like us but for the 99% people who go 'ugg, me want iPad' its a good thing.

TPM chip We work from there as many of our suppliers will know with their 'perfect for Education PCs' only for us to take them down a few notches....

Its at such a high value these days that unless you are trying to run databases off consumer drives there shouldn't ever be an issue. Looking at the lifetime on my old Vertx 2 I have 84% remaning, on the same ammount of writes on my new Vertex 3 I haven't even used a single resurve block yet. Thats under heavy IT tech style use with a few VMs now and again

Ahh.....

Try putting in a proxy exception into your Internet Explorer settings for your SLG address.

We run the HP DL165 G7s (very simlar just 1U instead of 2Us) and arn't having any issues with the 8 or so VMs we have on each server so unless your work loads are particularly bandwith heavy there won't be much need for more NICs.

Are you ok with Rack servers (e.g. propper cooling ect)?

It has 4x NICs - a pair of the NICs share a single controller though so you will in theory only get 2Gb/s total. The idea of having 2x NICs per controller is that one of the NICs could burn out/ect and you wouldn't lose the whole controller when using NIC teaming/bonding.

If you are camping surely you are trying to get away from electrical technology (well other than a wind up radio maybe…) All the same I would always go with gas if you need light for any decent amount of time – a 250/500 canister lasts for a very long time and gives a much more ‘homely light’.

I'm sure Luke will soon drop in on this one - to be honest though we have found in the past most collection places will drop the quoted price if they find some of the kit to be sub par on the description. Collection charge is a bit of a surprise but hey!

Would be a bit more of a project but System Centre Config Manager can give you the ablity to (through a web portal) allow students access VMs hosted on a server - can do snapshotting ect with no issues.

I've looked at doing something very similar a number of times in the past but it all ends up at - why am I bothering? Storage space is cheap and de dupe backup means not much space wasted on the backups. Our LEA has recently moved to a 'everything over 5 years old gets moved to tape and if you want it expect the file to take some time to load' methodology but in looking at similar solutions its all just too expensive to be worth bothering. Long live 2TB SATA!

Domain Users -Students --Years xyz -Staff --Support Staff --Teaching Staff --ect Domain Computers -Room 1 -Room 2 -ect Domain Servers -VHOSTs -RDS -Members Domain Controllers All pure vanillia

Have you tried a sfc /scannow from a admin command line?

Server 2003? Wow welcome to Server 2008 R2 Soon to be Server 8..... I won't say its 3 clicks but it should be a doddle for any Windows sysadmin (next, next, next, agree, copy boot from Windows 7 disk, capture, deploy).

Lets remember - parents choose (to a reasonable degree) which schools their children go do...lets say you have two practically identical schools X and Y, only thing is Y blocks mobile phone signal - which school will the parent send their student to? Above all else we should look at students and parents being the schools customers - and although restricting things like internet access is a accepted fact of life mobile phone signal blocking paint/ect isnt.... NB – not an excuse to talk about LEA student placement/catchment areas ect